I’ve mentioned it before: I don’t mind Dylan lifting lines from Timrod. I do mind his uncredited appropriations of entire pieces of music, but little snippets of text here and there — that’s a completely different matter.
In all the many discussions and opinions about this matter, two areas have been mentioned with some frequency, either in order to emphasise the offense, or to diminish it. In each their way, they add some interesting twists to the case, although they don’t change my verdict concerning the musical theft.
Academic borrowing
One of the references is to the academic world. The argument goes that if something like this had happened there, Dylan would have been sent home with an F and a relegation.
I would argue against this, although in some cases he comes close.